cover image You Can Go Your Own Way

You Can Go Your Own Way

Eric Smith. Inkyard, $18.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-335-40568-5

Once close friends, high school seniors Adam Stillwater and Whitney Mitchell now spar on Twitter via their respective family businesses’ social media accounts. Palestinian and Sicilian American Adam is trying to keep his deceased father’s beloved pinball arcade alive, but his mother is exhausted, and it’s time for him to think about college. Cued-white Whitney, meanwhile, is trying to get her father—an entrepreneur who’s finally hit it big with an e-sports place—to notice her by handling his social media. Whitney and Adam drifted apart when high school started: she got cool, while he got caught up in running the arcade. Set in the run-up to their Philadelphia neighborhood’s winter festival, and told alternatingly by Adam and Whitney—and their snarky social media exchanges—the book shows Adam’s lingering grief, and Whitney’s doubts about her mean-girl friend choices. Then a snowstorm threatens to derail the festival and thrusts Adam and Whitney together. Smith (Don’t Read the Comments) does a nice job setting up the camaraderie between local merchants; while excerpts from an imaginary pinball repair guide grow a bit wearying, it’s a pleasure to see the two leads work through the past to build a future. Ages 13–up. Agent: Dawn Frederick, Red Sofa Literary. (Nov.)